A synopsis of the story

Fast & Furious 6 opens with streets littered with dozens of wrecked and bombed vehicles. The carnage is the result of an attack by a mobile tactical unit led by a rogue special ops officer named Owen Shaw (Like Evans). In a bid to steal components to make a high-tech bomb, Shaw has left a field of destruction across twelve countries and now needs only one more component to complete his bomb. It is up to federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and his partner agent Riley (Gina Carano) to track down Shaw and bring him to justice.

Knowing that Shaw and his team are in a league of their own, Hobbs decides to approach Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), now living the easy life in the Canary Islands. Initially Dom refuses to help Hobbs until Hobbs shows him a photograph of Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodrigues), the love of Dom’s life who he believed to have died some years earlier. Apparently Letty is now a key member of Shaw’s team.

In exchange for full pardons for himself and his team and in a bid to determine if Letty is alive, Dom reassembles his old Fast & Furious team. They are tested to the limit as they try to uncover the mystery surrounding Letty’s reappearance and to prevent Shaw from stealing the final component needed to build his bomb.

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Fast & Furious 6 contains intense sequences of action violence, including some brutal violence, and the depiction of some deaths, but blood and gore is minimal. There are many scenes of car racing and car chases involving ramming, deliberate crashes, machine gun fire, explosions and injury. Examples include:

During the brutal interrogation of a prisoner, a federal officer picks the prisoner up and throws him against the ceiling, walls and glass panelling of the interrogation room, then slams him down on to a table top, destroying the table. Following the assault, the prisoner lies unconscious on the floor.

The film contains many brutal fights including kicks, punches and elbowing to the body as well as a number of head-butts; we see occasional blood as a result.

A man is attacked by three knife wielding assailants, fends them off and knocks them unconscious.

Two extended scenes depict brutal fights between two women during which they repeatedly punch, kick and elbow each other in the chest, face, and stomach with one of the women biting the other on the leg. At the end of the second fight, which occurs on board an army cargo plane, one of the women shoots her opponent in the chest with a high-powered spear-gun, the force of the spear knocking her out of the door of the cargo plane.

During a drag race, a car lands on its roof and petrol pools on the street. A man is trapped inside the upturned car. Another man deliberately ignites the petrol and the car explodes, killing the man inside.

One scene depicts three men firing machine guns at two women and a man, with the woman firing handguns back at them. A man is shot and killed, dying onscreen with some blood covering his mouth.

In one scene a man wielding a machine gun jumps onto the roof a van and shoots all the van’s occupants through the roof of the van; we see a brief image of the occupants being shot.

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Sexual references

The film contains some sexual innuendo. Examples include:

A man tells a second man that he should buy a big diamond ring for his girlfriend and if he doesn’t he had better be “big somewhere else”. The other responds, “Is that why your girlfriend wears so much bling?”

A man on board a private jet with a number of sexily dressed women tells them that they are “about to have the time of their lives”.

A woman tells a man “You’ve got some serious balls.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some partial nudity, implied sexual activity and a number of scenes objectifying women. Examples include:

One scene shows a man and a woman lying next to each other, apparently naked, in bed. We see a quick side view of the woman’s naked breast and back, and the man’s bare chest.

A man and woman compare scars by pulling up their shirts in a suggestive manner to reveal portions of their abdomen.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

Various characters drink beer and champagne but no intoxication is depicted

A reference to a major criminal having been a drug runner.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

arse, arsehole and shit (used multiple times and ways)

bitch

fuck off (once)

Jesus Christ

bastard

In a nutshell

Fast and Furious 6, likely to attract an audience of adolescent males plus some older fans, is the sixth instalment in a series spanning more than a decade. Like the previous films in the series, it contains plenty of action, thrills, spills, explosions and violence, although with minimal depiction of blood and gore.

The film is over two hours long with a rather weak storyline. The constant mayhem and violence, at times brutal, and some coarse language, make it unsuitable for children under 14, with parental guidance recommended for the 14 to 15 year olds. Parents may be concerned by the apparent lack of real life consequences resulting from the dangerous driving and horrific car crashes shown. They may also wish to discuss the way in which some of the female characters are objectified by the dialogue and costumes.

Loyalty and the importance of being part of a family are emphasised throughout the film and a number of the film’s characters are willing to make personal sacrifices for those they see as part of their family.